The Story of The Last Resort: Part Eleven

Part Eleven of how the Last Resort came to be! Scroll down to read Parts One through Ten!

Well, I left off with the Fire Engine in the 4th of July parades here in Eagle River. During one parade, we finished the run down Wall Street, and it began to storm. I mean blowing livestock, sheets of cold rain and wind, lightning, thunder, and finally hail. We had a load of kids and adults getting soaked in the back, so we stopped and let them all off to run in a restaurant to get out of the weather. Now Carol and I are in our Red Convertible wearing our Official Fire Engine Helmets trying to make our way through traffic to get home. We were thankful that we were wearing the hard helmets as the hailstones were pelting our heads with marble size hailstones.

All of these nice people in their nice dry cars were not interested in making room for the Convertible and the two occupants being pelted with hail. So we sat and we suffered. I turned to my right and said to Carol, “I don’t suppose you are crazy enough to want to marry me?” She look startled as a huge bolt of lightning flashed across the sky followed by earth shaking thunder, and I did not know which issue caused that look. Fortunately for me she was willing to take a chance and here we are 30 years later still running the resort.

Katie and Lizzie joined the resort family in October of 1988 and every summer since putting in many hours of hard work, dedication, and creativity keeping the resort up and running. Now at 27 years of age they have both managed to finagle the summers off their normal work to come and help us elderly people keep er’ going.

In 1989, we moved to Delray Beach Florida from Chicago and that made the commute to Eagle River a real ordeal. We just close up the house in Florida and make Eagle River our home from late May through Mid October. Have to say the back and forth has gotten a bit weary-some, but when the time comes, we are anxious to get back in the saddle of the resort operation. For the next 20 years, we made the trip up for the summer business and returned to Florida for the girls schooling in the fall. We would come back up for 2 weeks over Christmas as Eagle River is just a perfect place to be for the Christmas season. We managed to get some snowmobiling in, ice fishing and a few trips up to Powder Horn and Indian Head, Michigan for some downhill skiing. Great family fun and we are thankful for the great memories.

About 20 years ago, I decided to rebuild the derelict cottage by the lake (8 feet away) and followed protocol by tearing down the building and leaving up two exterior walls to show the footprint. I built a new flooring platform and ordered the building material necessary to complete the job. I contacted the Zoning department and informed them of what I was doing. The Zoning King came out and informed us that we could not rebuild the cottage as it is too close to the water. He said we could only turn it into a boat storage house. He added that as long as he is administrator we would NEVER be able to get a permit to rebuild the cottage. So we made it into a storage building with NO windows as per the law.

I waited until that *&^%#@ retired and then hired an attorney to see about getting a building permit. The new Administrator met with us and thought we could work out something eventually. He only lasted a year in his job and was gone. The new administrator was hired and my lawyer was supposed to begin negotiating with her for my permit. Turns out he was gunning for a judgeship and had little to no time for my case, so I relieved him of his duties.

To be continued…………